hollow.

These men
Who down a hundred cups of chai
Each week--sun or rain,
Will just depress you
Making you hollow from the inside.

They won't write to cheer you up,
Nor will they dance when you ask.
They'll stay sullen in corners
Of happy celebrations.

Your heart just had to
Tend towards the heartless,
Wanting to give them life,
And understand who they are.
Give them form and art,
To make them your masterpiece.

You'll cry yourself to sleep, fine.
You'll fight the odds to love the boring.
You'll break all norms to look beyond,
But all you find is nothingness.

For God's sake, you poet,
Learn to love one of your kind-
Do yourself a favour woman,
Fuck someone whose words
Will kiss you goodnight.

Separation.

With fingers entwined, hidden behind the two,
Flashes of fond memory buzz past you-- the separation,
You make your way through the crowd,
Looking away- probably at the puddle in the corner.

You consume the dim, yellow streetlights;
The smell of the night- you find ourselves bottling it up for posterity.
His fingers now cupping your face, your eyes fixated on his,
You know how the impression of his intense gaze still
Burns the side of your cheek. To be called beautiful,
When all you think is you are a fat, unimpressive existence.
To have your lips speak to another's in no language,
You suddenly know the distance approaching
Will just make you desperate- So you kiss him some more,
Until you let go to smile and hold his hand one last time,
Say goodbye and feel the weight of his absence immediately,
But you know you'll live, you know there is no end-
You're never over, you see.

The next morning's sunshine makes your head spin,
Like you're hungover on a memory, a fantasy,
Something you can't see for months now. You leave
On a flight and land somewhere. Jump into bed,
And realize you're gone. So, you cry
Into your pillow carefully tucking him into your thoughts
Like a poem you now know by-heart.

So says the stuck-up writer.

If you want to be a stuck-up writer,
Quote voraciously from Shakespeare,
Eliot, cummings, Lawrence and Frost.
Feel like you know them inside-out
That their feelings are nothing but your own,
Shout-out to them like they're listening,
And converse--converse like they care.

If you want to be a stuck-up writer,
Peer at the moon, count the stars,
Keep track of time and neatly notice
Every damn detail and scribble,
Hoping the unison the pen and paper
Never dies and sing a song of the
Wholeness of the night a little less loved.

If you want to be a stuck-up writer,
Fall in love with someone you must
Instead avoid, and speak of your favorite
Books at a coffee shop, eat lesser than usual,
Repeatedly tuck your hair behind your ear,
And be glad that it happened, maybe show
Him some of your poetry?

If you want to be a stuck-up writer,
Get drunk on the cheapest cocktail,
And claim that the world is your snow globe,
Write like nobody's business, and also
Rhyme like it has always been your thing,
Walk under the streetlight feeling the warmth,
Repeating words of a happy song.

But if you don't want to be a stuck-up writer,
Quote from a best friend's poem or text,
Because you know them inside-out,
Spend each moment under the stars and
Notice them, but not as significant parts of poetry,
Fall in love with someone who knows you
Write poetry and that too bad poetry and yet
Accepts you. Get drunk and weep, for
You know and so do I, not all of us are
Happy drunks. Don't be a stuck-up writer,
Love, laugh, forget. Write when you miss.
Write for the self. Write because you need.

Move.

You're the platform

And me, the train.
I can't wait
To wait to look
At me waiting
An unwanted wait
For a man
Who never waited.

On you.

Existential crisis coupled with busy heartbeats

In a classroom of us in different shades,

Making blotchy lines against a scaled life.

A wandering mind, musical fingers

Playing a melody I now pretend not to remember.

But inside, when I'm undone

Retiring for the night,

Words creep onto the page:

Two for a tale, one for a poem-

Are these stories half told?

How do you measure growth of self?

Always

Being more, beyond, above and greater,

Like this journey was not a hyperbole

But only ups, an increasing function.

As we fool each other into believing

One is smarter than the other,

To keep high as the only constant

Tonight, we find

Stubborn love and screened smiles

Creating a disguise for the self,

One for everyone to believe.

And this 

Can never help you escape

How you bleed on paper,

When life is calm, static.

When you stop for moment

And let it seep in,

You'll know whom you look up to,

What you miss, why you cry,

How broken you are.

We are one complete story 

But half a lie- we always end,

Before we even imagine to begin.